The forecast of this monster storm headed for the Carolina Coast is bringing back all sorts of memories for me. I was there in 1968 when a massive system came through. About thirty of us Marines and all our fancy radio gear were being loaded aboard ship to leave Morehead City, NC with a destination of San Juan, PR. We left in a hurry to get out of the port and out to sea.

Ships are safer at sea in bad weather than in harbors were the wind and surge can raise havoc in the confined space, literally stacking things the way that was never intended. So, we left quickly, and cleared land safely but lost a lot of government property off the deck because it wasn’t chained down to meet the conditions.

So, we were aboard an LST or LSD which are similar flat bottomed ships made to get up to a beach so they don’t need a dock to unload. The major disadvantage is that this shallow draft makes them very unstable and squirrelly in the blue water. And this we the Marines on board found out not being experienced sailors. We were scared to death and we wound up after three days 300 miles north of where we started; we were headed south remember.

But we made it to Puerto Rico after that and we spent the winter there in the warm, a good trade off to the harrowing opening experience. I never put this together but in 1975 I was sailing out of Hilo, HI with a destination of San Francisco, CA. And something very similar happened but in a warm and sunny way. We left the harbor a couple of days before a tsunami came in to land and devastated the harbor. We were out to sea and sailing northeast toward the Horse Latitudes and the massive when surge passed right under us and we never felt it one bit. We were wrapped in our protective blanket of good karma is maybe how we expressed our luck.

But there maybe is a lesson here somewhere about facing our personal “storms”.
We are not always safest in the safe places. Sometimes we have to get clear of things that trap or confine us and just wing it to the best of our ability. Yes, let me mull this over.

Well, walking in a moment and then archery lessons. I hope I haven’t been too off topic with that but it just “blew” in on me so to speak, a memory storm.
40 knot loves, Felipe.